Wanting More Every Day

Want more from yourself each day, not the best.

Often, people want the best out of themselves, never quite living up to such impossible expectations. Expectations are a major source of self-imposed pain and suffering, an important topic of merit. However, here, I wish to transform our mental perspective of ourselves and what we’re capable of accomplishing on the spot.

We start with the aspiration of wanting more from ourselves each day. Aspirations are a great place to begin this transformational process. Aspirations are meaningless without intention. Intention is really an internal moment that consists of an emotional or mental choice of a desired outcome. “I really feel like or think I want to do more today.” Intention is very simple and direct. There’s nothing before or after. It is only an emotional or mental moment in time.

Intention only begins to make an impact when we bring that intention consistently into mind. We can see how intention can easily slip away. We really want (aspiration) a cup of tea. We have every intention of steeping some tea. We even pour the water into the teapot. We even put the teapot on the stove. The water eventually boils, and we pour the boiling water over the dried tea leaves. If we lose our original intention of wanting a cup of tea, we may lose track of that cup of steeping tea. Intention only matters if we consistently keep that intention in the focus of our mind. We may do all the work necessary but never enjoy the fruits of our labor, that cup of intentional tea.

 Throughout the day, we must consistently reacquire the intention of wanting more from ourselves. It can be so easy to let that intention evacuate the building where we work, wonder off while we eat lunch, become lost to and from everywhere we go . . . the list of what we do can be extremely long or very short, but we can all do more with what little we do or how much we do. We might be doing too much, or we could better manage our time. If we can name one activity that cannot be improved upon, why do we even do anything?

We can all want more from ourselves without asking more from others or objects. That’s the key here. We don’t want to increase our dependence. We want to empower ourselves, to see that we are still these amazingly capable creatures that can do more than we ever give ourselves credit of doing. We need only to try. By asking ourselves to be the best, we’re setting ourselves up to be better than every other being on the planet. What are the odds in that? That’s self-abuse on the highest order.

By wanting more from ourselves today, we’re saying, “let’s do this, let’s get started, because  we  know we can!”

Untying the Knots of an Unintentional Mind

We are the only way, and we are in the way.

The mind loves to runaway with just about any thought or any feeling, sometimes one after another after another. Our mind is designed to think, to consider, to feel, to contemplate, to play, to lounge, to relax, to stress, to fight, to flight. Some of what we think is real or possible; most of it is just 'la la la bang bang bang smurf berry realness'.
  
These thoughts and feelings can be made in a concerted effort or made randomly and disconnectedly. When applied with intention, we can actually accomplish nearly anything we apply our mind toward achieving. It is possible to train our minds to not work against our intentions. We can train our minds as gymnasts train their bodies and minds to achieve remarkable feats.  

Some of these mental gymnastics can be quite productive and useful. We can build and grow things, feed ourselves and others, bring people together. We can also deconstruct reality in ways that can yield new opportunities for understanding ourselves, others and our environment, learning how to better maximize and utilize all that is available to us. Other times, these mental gymnastics can become an obstacle to achieving anything substantial or useful. We can even harm ourselves, others and our immediate environment in ways that are damaging and even irreparable.

We have the superior role in redirecting these mental misadventures. It can be quite difficult to halt or even slow these completely natural functions of mind. When our mind seems to set off on one of these misadventures, attempt to focus your mind on watching your body breathe. Our mind will want to return to its galloping, and that’s not only predictable, it’s natural. When this happens, acknowledge it for what it really is, 'thinking,' and go back to focusing on the breathing again. Try this out.  Sometimes this method can work quite quickly and easily.
  
Make certain to have fun with how the mind wants to gallop off into the mental wilderness of thought and feeling. Absolutely do not be mean to the mind. Training our mind happens gradually and naturally, but it does take intention. We’re not trying to beat the life out of ourselves. What we do with our mind is so important. If we train our mind to abuse ourselves or others, we’ve missed not only the point but this opportunity. We are not trying to rid ourselves of our true nature, but to redirect that nature with our intention infused with patience, understanding and compassion.

When I struggle with this, I often don’t even realize that I’ve become lost. That’s why at the end of every day I try to just sit and take note of the current state of my mental well being. On those difficult days, especially the days I haven’t realized I’ve become lost in the mental wilderness, I find my mind is all tied up in knots. I can literally feel the tension of attachment and desperate grasping, of what, I really don’t know and couldn’t tell you.
  
To tackle this requires a bit more than just focusing on breathing. When our minds are knotted up, we have to visualize loosening that mental grip. This can take some real concerted mental effort. Often, when we find our mind in this condition, we’ve become completely exhausted and are possibly in a great deal of pain. However exhausted or in pain we might feel, it’s important to loosen these strangleholds if we can.

Allow the mind to wholly embrace these knots . . . to become one with these knots. This may seem counter-intuitive, but these knots are actually parts of our minds. We ignored them throughout the day, or even longer. We need to bring them closer to our awareness, not to push them away or suppress them. As we embrace these painful knots with awareness, we can visualize the knots loosening. Just like an actual knot in a shoe lace or a rope, you sometimes have to work at it for awhile before you’re able to make some progress. If you begin to struggle with the knot, it often makes it much worse.

The idea is never to struggle against our nature, but to understand and work with it instead. We’re not trying to break our spirit. We want to do something with this mind, with this life. We don’t want to beat our minds into submission; we want to free our minds into action and exploration. We want to use our nature as an asset and not as an adversary.
  
It can be so easy to fall back into old familiar patterns, unaware we’re tying ourselves up into mental knots once again. When we catch ourselves returning to these mental misadventures, simply call it for what it is, ‘thinking,’ and let it go once again. As we become more accustomed to being gentle with ourselves in these moments, we begin to transform our lives with our intentions on the spot.

These knots may be comprised of aspects of our mind, but these knots aren’t the natural state of our mind. That is why it requires so much concerted effort and intention to heal. These exercises can be used wherever and whenever we find ourselves. We are the only ones that can do the work. It starts with the intention, and then we have to apply the action.

When are we going to do something about our life? Where do we start?

We are the only way, and we are in the way. It can begin right now, and it starts with intention.

Other Related Ridding of Ignorance Articles  

A Daily Exercise for the Mind 

Vigilant Presence in a Hostile World

 The Beauty of Irritability

Start Where We Are, Begin Right Now 

Stop Wrestling Reality

Don’t struggle against reality, work with it instead. When we treat our conditions and surroundings as the enemy, we usually empower the inanimate. People can be the enemy, but conditions lack consciousness and are not sentient.

If this is merely a stepping stone on a greater and longer path, trust in that. Don’t allow the mind to runaway with considering what others perceive your conditions and position to be. People can use your conditions and surroundings against you, but they can only do so if you don’t trust what you’re doing. Listen carefully to people, but remember that we’re all mistaken creatures.

Is what someone is saying true? Is it relevant? Is it rational? Is it based in personal experience or in bias? Are they out for others or for just themselves? Do their words match their actions?

It is so important to have intention in all that we do. Connect that intention with all of our actions. Then, we must check in to understand if that action achieves the desired result using objective observation and analysis. This approach may seem cold and calculating, but if our objectives are for the well being of ourselves and others, how could it be negative or detrimental? We may make mistakes, but we’re allowing for that eventuality through our objective observations and analyses. In this way we are always moving forward. Every step, every action, every intention is part of our path. Every misstep and mistake becomes opportunities for growth.  

We can affect our reality, but we shouldn’t force it or try and manipulate it. Otherwise, when we move our attention elsewhere, reality will begin to revert to form. That is why we must be careful to understand the true nature of what it is we are trying to work with. It’s like trying to make paper out of a mountain or an air conditioner out of a volcano. We can’t turn weather into people, or people into more than they want to be. It is rarely successful to try to force ourselves or others to do anything. It stifles creativity, stunts growth and definitely kills freedom.

We have to work with ourselves and others where and how we are right here and right now. We are truly capable of so much, but if we don’t feel as if we are, we’re not going to accomplish much at all. Many of us have real conditions, some that are obvious and other conditions that are much more subtle. If we truly want to help someone, we first must truly listen and not just to the words that are said but more to the actions, demeanor and behaviors that are almost more important.

Where is this person coming from? Are they sick? Are they hurt? Are they wounded? Are we reactive to it because it’s true or because we fear that it is? Are we overly concerned that we don’t want to make things worse so we don’t do anything at all or because we really lack the skills and the experience to make things better?

Ultimately, we must make our own decisions. We just strive to make our decisions work for achieving our objectives and not to obstruct someone else achieving their own goals. We can use our objectivity and critical thinking to help ourselves and others achieve great things. We can also use our ignorance and mistakenness to tear others down and transmit our personal pain and suffering onto them. We can do better that that, and we should strive to do so in all that we do. We have to make conscious choices in order to do that.

What is it that we really want to achieve? Is it worthwhile? Is it selfish or selfless? Is there a reasonable plan with tangible steps or a pipe dream full of words and lacking action? Are we being helpful or hurtful? Do we care if we’re wrong or just want to be right?

Some people don’t know what to do with their pain and suffering and will do anything they can to project and transmit it to others. We don’t have to absorb that. We can relax into our own reality while understanding that others have their own version of reality to contend with. They just maybe projecting that reality onto or at us.

When we wrestle with reality, we’re missing these opportunities.  This reality is our only way to achieve anything. When we treat it like the enemy, we’ve already lost the war. Our mind is our only vehicle to make choices that affect our life and the lives of others. What others do is ultimately up to them, but we can choose to do something different. We can stop wrestling with reality and work with it instead. We can do this, but we have to keep at it. There’s always a reason not to . . . so use the one reason to do this . . . to make our lives better.

Check out these other related Ridding of Ignorance articles.

Some of these are my favorites.

The Internal Waters of Thinking of You 

The Hurt Struggle

The Designation and Assumption Concern

Breaking the Reactivity Cycle

 

Coping with Loved Ones in a Toxic Coma

There are people in all of our lives. Each is important but some we consider to be family. These bonds aren’t always by blood, as in our close friends or spouses. We love and care for each of them. If those loved ones are blessed enough, that love and care is returned. The return of that good will should never be the reason we are patient, generate understanding or compassion for anyone. These must be given freely, without the strings of attachment or expectation. It’s the difference between being selfish and selfless. We may not even be in direct contact with a loved one in order to wish them peace, joy and happiness. Imagine someone in a coma. We can’t have any realistic expectation of a return for our love and care for someone in such a condition. That doesn’t mean we don’t care or that we don’t love and wish them to get better.

There are other conditions and circumstances that our loved ones can be experiencing that are similar to a coma. Someone may have experienced a great loss, have been traumatized or sick from disease or injury. Mostly, we think we can see these diseases, injuries, losses and traumas very clearly in those closest to us. Sometimes, it’s not so obvious. Other times, the person with the condition isn’t even aware that they are sick. In even extreme cases, people can be so unaware of how sick they are that they are capable of destructive acts, wreaking damage and potential devastation to those they love and that love them. These people are still worthy and in great need of patience, understanding and compassion. We sometimes lack experience in how to interact with them without causing even greater pain and more intense suffering as well as causing harm to ourselves in the process.

Some people are just so sick that they turn everyone into the enemy or a villain. There can be symbiotic relationships that feed on one another’s sickness. As these relationships develop, instead of gaining insight into why they are both suffering so much, they back up their dysfunctional views of themselves as well as their mutual distaste for others. This has a very isolating affect, intensifying their conditions and increasing the potential damage. They see good will as condescending, misconstrue compassion for pity. There are infinite ways sick people push away their loved ones. When someone is in a coma, we can’t be pushed away.

When we find ourselves at the end of all of that understanding, having been so patient, having really generated true compassion for a loved one in such an isolating situation, we need to begin treating them like a loved one that’s in a coma. This person is not capable of hearing us, nor capable of truly seeing us as fellow human beings sharing a common humanity. Further interaction only intensifies the hold of their conditions and isolating symbiotic relationships. Unless there is obvious evidence of injury or trauma, we even lack a mechanism where someone with authority can intervene.

Most abuse is internalized, unable to be verified by simple observation. Abuse is obvious when an arm or a leg is cut off in an angry rage. However, most abuse is emotional, as words leave no physical scars. Even bruises go away and external wounds heal. What compounds this terrible situation is the growing isolation that the relationship sustains in order to hide the dysfunction so as to not have to contend with those loved ones striving to alleviate some of the pain and comfort the suffering that they both experience.

These are such difficult situations for everyone. What do we do? We begin to treat them as if they are a loved one in a coma. We think about them, we generate compassion for what they are going through. If they were to wake up, we will be there for them, but we don’t have to remain in the room. When someone is filling their immediate environment with toxic fumes, we don’t just stay inside to reason with them. That’s idiot compassion. Instead, we open the windows, open the door and try and get out of this deadly place. We can’t force someone to leave unless they are truly incapacitated or we are strong enough to lift them up and take them out of their toxic environment. In these extreme moments, it may become necessary to discontinue an active, engaged relationship with someone in such a terrible situation. In these most difficult of interpersonal relations, we must tread and consider carefully.

There are few singular reasons to make this break with someone. It has to be a preponderance of the evidence coupled with the history of not only our interaction with this individual but also our overall understanding of the personal histories, relevant capacities and skills balanced with a personal willingness and openness to gain insight or accept guidance. We may even discover our own current situation is incompatible with this person’s toxic existence, which raises the potential damage for us. We cannot stay forever in the room with a coma patient, nor can we withstand relentless abuse and trauma from our loved ones. At some point, we really have exhausted all of our reasonable options. We can’t heal the world if we’re being actively injured by our loved ones.

If the patient doesn’t want the remedy, doesn’t even admit to the sickness, we simply cannot force them to do so. In fact, in some cases this could be highly counterproductive. We don’t have to have an active, engaged interaction to genuinely love and care for a person. We don’t have to sink our own vessel. If there’s someone on board a cruise ship hell bent on killing others or sinking the ship, you throw that person overboard to save yourself but more importantly to save others. We can throw that person a life preserver or give them a life raft, but if there is no willingness to grab hold or get into the boat, we cannot let our ship go down because of one angry and out of control person.

We must be careful to not simply think the worst of others. There are no external relationships that can be salvaged by one person alone. We can love and care for loved ones without having direct contact. We don’t have to let someone back on our ship until we become satisfied they are no longer a danger to us or others. We don’t have to let someone back in the house when that person is actively spewing toxic venom.  We can love and care for someone, even if that person is in a toxic coma.

This maybe a bit of a heavy topic. I suggest reading The True Partners on the Path. 

That is my blueprint/roadmap for being our best in all of our relationships.

It's an aspirational piece, but it's also within reach every day.

Have issues in your family or in your relationships?

Let me be a fresh set of eyes. Email me: radicaldifference@gmail.com

Owning Our Decisions

"Drive all blames into one."

-The Root Text of the Seven Points of Training the Mind, Chekawa Yeshe Dorje

Whenever we make decisions, we must strive to make each solely on our own. In this way the consequences for the decisions we make are our own, allowing less distraction from the inevitable blame game. This doesn’t mean to not listen to others or seek experienced guidance or counsel from others. However, when we do make a decision, we make it wholly on our own. For many, this may seem like a departure from awareness. However, it actually opens us up to exploring the outcomes of our intentions and actions without looking for a villain. The villain is our ignorance, not some external sentient being that makes us a victim.

By owning our decisions, we simply strive to make the best choices we can, given our understanding of ourselves, of others and of our surroundings. We then can balance that understanding with our intentions and our previous relevant experiences. When we really listen and try to understand someone, that interaction aids us in seeing ourselves more clearly. Maybe, someone is adamant at being right and urges us to follow their advice. If we follow this person’s advice, we must do so with the realization that we’re making the ultimate decision. We believe this person isn’t misleading us or we wouldn’t act on the advice. This person may not be actively misleading us, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to bring us negative consequences. This person might be mistaken or making an error in judgment. We simply don’t know until we find out for ourselves. If we believe someone, we must understand that we might be wrong to do so. It’s our decision to believe.

Maybe, we’ve already made that particular choice and seen the unfortunate outcomes firsthand. We can choose to not believe. However when we disagree with someone, we must also consider that the surrounding conditions have changed significantly since we developed our previous understanding. This is why finding the best path to actualize our intentions is so difficult. The path itself is changing as we grow and change and as the world changes and evolves. This is the groundless nature of reality.

There are countless examples of this in the history of humanity. Before planes, the fastest way to travel was by train and before that by car and before that by running. If we don’t allow for the conditions and our understanding to evolve, we are stuck in a fixed point in space and time. Where once we had managed to rid ourselves of ignorance, we have invited it back in by holding onto our old understandings. Attachment to being right is as much ignorance as being attached to someone else being wrong.  

It is not helpful to our understanding to feel bad about making mistakes. That is how we learn. If we’re so busy pointing fingers, we’re busy distracting ourselves from making better decisions right here and right now. We don’t need to punish ourselves for our missteps and miscalculations. We need only to learn. It is also not helpful to think poorly of others that have made mistakes. It may give us satisfaction, but how does that satisfaction help either of us gain understanding or expand our awareness?

We can apply this to others as well. As long as our intention is not to harm others, making every effort to not do so, we know that we are not to blame for the mistakes of others. Considering our own tendency to look for someone else to blame for our consequences, we must consider this when others blame us for their own. Taking these accusations personally certainly isn’t very productive. And, we can absolutely relate to the predicament of those that are caught in the throes of their own ignorance, as we are and have been similarly impaired.  

As much as we might find relief in blaming someone else, it does nothing to affect or rid ourselves of the real culprit . . . our own ignorance. We can do something about it, and we will be more effective at doing that by eliminating the distraction of blaming someone else and taking on blame from others. There’s nothing to feel bad about in recognizing our ignorant nature. Our ignorance is an opportunity. By understanding it, we can relate better to everyone. By understanding it, we can learn and let it go.